This
is a great victory for the Standing Rock and Oglala Sioux Tribes as
they can now create a foster care run by Lakota, for Lakota children.

In addition to this, five other Tribes have applied for the Title IV-E Planning Grants this year, and although they have not received such grants, the Lakota People's Law Project has not
lost hope and will be calling an inter-agency meeting with the
Department of Justice, the Department of Interior, and Health and Human
Services in Washington DC later this month. At this meeting, the funds
will be requested so that Lower Brule, Flandreau, Crow Creek, Cheyenne
River, and Yankton tribes can begin the process towards the creation of
their own foster care system.

Thank you to everyone who has signed the petition. 50,000 Signatures, so far!

This short film; “Hearts on the Ground.” Film director; Kalyanee Mam, documents South Dakota’s Forced Taking of Lakota Children.

The
video, is at the center of a new “Bring Lakota Children Home” Campaign.
The epidemic of child taking by the State of South Dakota is tearing
thousands of Lakota Sioux families apart.

The
campaign, on behalf of thousands of Lakota Sioux families whose children
have illegally and forcibly been removed from their families and
tribes, demands that President Obama compel the Department of Justice to
enforce the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978, and stop the State of South Dakota’s war on Lakota children.

Every day, Lakota Grandmothers are illegally denied their right to foster their own grandchildren.

The
South Dakota Dept. of Social Services rejects grandmothers for such
trivial reasons as too few rooms in a home, too small of a home, too
old, decades old crimes, and even rumors. "

South
Dakota continues to violate the federal law by placing 90% of the 750
Lakota foster children it seizes each year into non-Native homes and
facilities, instead of with relatives or tribal homes.

Both
federal law and the United Nations define this behavior as genocide.
Only tribal programs are placing foster children with their relatives.

President
Obama has the authority to order three federal agencies (the Department
of the Interior, the Department of Justice and Department of Health and
Human Services), to provide resources to train and develop tribal
family service programs and foster care systems for the nine Lakota
Sioux tribal Councils.

Within a short time, the $60
million in federal funds that currently go to the State of South
Dakota’s Department of Social Services to illegally remove Indian
children and force them into foster care, can instead be spent and
managed by the tribes, as they work to keep children with relatives,
while restoring tribal sovereignty.

Lakota children are
more than ten times more likely to be forcibly removed from their
parents and comprise about 60% of all foster children in the state.

In
more than 90% of the cases, simply alleged “neglect,” as opposed to
sexual or physical abuse, is given as the reason for the forced taking,
sometimes at gunpoint, sometimes while at school, or in the middle of
the night. Poverty equals “neglect” in the mind of the State workers.

What
is happening to Lakota children and families in South Dakota today is
precisely the sort of activity that Congress intended to stop when it
passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, 1978.

The
Act mandates that when states remove Native American children from
their parents, they must be placed with relatives from their extended
family, or with other members of their tribe, or with members of other
tribes.

Only when an active effort for such placements
fail are states allowed to place Native Americans in White foster homes,
or state run foster care facilities.

The
Department of Social Services in South Dakota continues to deny child
placements to willing and capable relatives, while “stripping” parents
of all parental rights to ever see their children again, for
“violations” as trivial as failing to show up at parenting classes.

South Dakota designates every Native child in its foster care system as “special needs,” receiving up to $79,000 from the federal government for their care annually.

Then
forcing many to take mind-altering drugs, even some as young at 18
months of age. Medicare spending for foster care child prescriptions in
South Dakota increased more than 1,000 percent in the recent decade,
while suicide rates for young Lakota children are 12 times the national
average, and among the highest in the world. Some of the suicides are
clearly related to the forced medications.

More than a
century after being forced from their ancestral lands onto reservations,
the 70,000 members of the Lakota Sioux nation remain the poorest, most
oppressed people in the United States.

About Me

♥For My Constant Muse-Dr Theodore Adams, Professor of Sociology♥
Act Now, Together we can bring Peace to this Crazy World.
Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called the Children of God.
I often use music in my blog, because music is universal. It says what I would like to say, although these great talents say it much more eloquently than I could.
I Love good people. I've met all kinds and I think that people are all the same. There are good ones and not so good ones, etc. But, the good ones far outnumber the bad ones.
Gandhi said, Be the change you want to see in the world.
If you like my blog send a dollar (or more), directly to one of the charities.
Feel Great for a dollar!
Peace